Note 764 — Chapter IV

Flat bronze celts were found by Canon Greenwell in two only of the multitudes of barrows which he has explored not only in the northern counties but also in Wiltshire and Berkshire (Archaeologia, lii, 1890, p. 3); while Mr. J. R. Mortimer (Forty Years’ Researches, p. xlvi) never found one with any of the 893 interments which he examined on the Yorkshire Wolds. The canon opened four Late Celtic barrows in the parish of Cowlam, of which he says (Brit. Barrows, p. 212), ‘Had the bodies occurred without the necklace, fibula, or armlets, I should not have hesitated the least about classing these four barrows with the other barrows in the immediate vicinity, which were of the time of stone, or more probably of bronze.’ Is it unreasonable to conclude that a few other barrows which contain no relics of the late Bronze Age may nevertheless belong to that time?